A tale of two teams for sure in the desert as the Coyotes took out the Capitals 3-2 in a tough, defensive affair. For Phoenix, the win is their fifth straight and it moves them into sole possession first place in the Pacific Division. With the Dallas Stars reeling and everyone else in the division catching up with them, it was only a matter of time that someone took the lead and Phoenix took advantage of things.

The Coyotes got goals from Martin Hanzal, Ray Whitney, and the game-winner from Vernon Fiddler in the third all while Ilya Bryzgalov held strong in goal stopping 29 shots. While the Caps outshot the Coyotes by a wide margin (30-18), Phoenix was able to take better advantage of their opportunities.

Washington dealing with another frustrating loss, their third in a row, is getting to be a tired topic of discussion in the nation’s capital. Yet again, we saw a lot of Alex Ovechkin, often taking extremely long shifts in order to try and spark the offense that just can’t wake up. This time around we saw odd match-up choices, including on the game’s final play.

With the Caps down by a goal and trying to kill a late penalty, they had a faceoff in the Phoenix end with 1.9 seconds to play. With most of the Caps attackers fanned out wide of the circle ready to jump on a rebound from the point, the player the Caps were trying to win the faceoff back to to score wasn’t Alex Semin or Ovechkin but rather Jason Chimera. Chimera fanned on the shot and time ticked away on their defeat.

Once again, the Caps biggest offensive stars were no-shows. Nicklas Backstrom, Alex Semin, and Alex Ovechkin combined for one assist on the game (Semin assisted on Marcus Johansson’s goal in the second period). Getting goals from Johansson and Matt Bradley are nice production to get from your depth players, but when they’re your only consistent contributors you’ve got some big problems to take care of.

The fans aren’t happy and the team is playing without any intensity. Being able to get up for games against the likes of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is easy for the Caps, for anyone else it seems to be an issue. Something’s got to give in D.C. and soon because if the team continues to go on like this, their stay in the playoffs will be a very short one.

One day ago the Boston Bruins signed US Olympian Ryan Donato to an entry level contract.

On Monday, he was given an opportunity to immediately slide into their lineup against the Columbus Blue Jackets and he did not waste any time making an impact.

After recording four shots on goal in the first period, Donato broke through with his first NHL goal in the second period (on his fifth shot of the game) when he blasted a one-timer home on a give-and-go with Torey Krug.

All of that is happening against a Blue Jackets team that entered the night having won seven in a row, while the Bruins were playing without Patrice Bergeron, Rick Nash and Charlie McAvoy. Pretty deep team they have in Boston.

Donato added two more assists after scoring his first goal.

Unfortunately for the Bruins they were unable to hold on to that 3-1 lead and allowed Columbus to come from behind for the 5-4 overtime win.

Prior to signing with Bruins (and along with his time on the US Olympic team) Donato had been playing his collegiate hockey at Harvard. He scored 26 goals and added 17 assists in 29 games this season.

NBCSN’s coverage of the 2017-18 season continues on Monday night when the Los Angeles Kings visit the Minnesota Wild. Puck drop is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET. You can catch all of the action on NBCSN or on our Live Stream.

Much like the NFL’s headaches when it comes to what is or isn’t a catch, a simple stroll around Hockey Twitter will often unearth loud groans about goalie interference reviews. At least when people aren’t grumbling about offside goal reviews, that is.

From the viewpoints of reporters on hand for the latest round of GM meetings, it sounds like the league is at least attempting to sort out the latest mess.

Granted, you could sense some of the fatigue on this issue from what Lightning GM Steve Yzerman had to say about it, via NHL.com’s Dan Rosen:

“You can clarify the standards, but each referee and everyone, you and I, has a different opinion,” Yzerman said. “Within that room everyone has a little different opinion on did it impact the goaltender. It’s subjective. No one is ever going to agree 100 percent.”

Fair enough, but much of the frustration stems from the sheer confusion at hand, as there doesn’t seem to be a clear standard. It’s one thing to disagree with how an infraction is called, but at the moment, many feel like there’s far too much variation in calls.

With that in mind, some GMs apparently hope to tweak the process by, ideally, limiting the number of people who are making the snap decisions on goalie interference:

It sounds like they’re going to start centralizing the decisions on goaltender interference reviews out of the NHL’s video reviews. An attempt for more consistency.

By “centralizing,” it could mean leaving that decision to “The Situation Room,” as Rosen explains:

GMs and NHL have discussed a lot of options to potentially improve the review process for goalie interference to create more consistency, including putting an official in The Situation Room to having The Situation Room make the final call. (2)

The meetings reportedly included test cases for goalie interference, with Rosen noting that GMs and media alike had trouble reaching a consensus on certain examples. That helps to illuminate the challenge at hand, but again, many people would probably be at least a bit happier if it was easier to anticipate what would and would not be called as interference.

Quite a few numbers were thrown around about coaches challenges. ESPN’s Emily Kaplan shared a slide from the NHL that would argue that offside challenges have dropped off, likely because a failed challenge results in a delay of game penalty, but goalie interference remains a drag on the game.

For fans of the sport, it’s about walking the line between getting it right and not grinding too many games to a screeching halt. One might ponder carrying over the delay of game penalty to challenging goalie interference alongside offside reviews, but that might not fly:

One idea brought up today in GM mtgs was a 2-minute penalty for incorrect goaltender interference challenge. Colin Campbell didn't seem wild about it, since it's subjective and not black and white like offside. But penalty for offside has resulted in ~50 fewer challenges y/o/y.

Maybe Habs GM Marc Bergevin is correct in saying that just a small number of calls go wrong. Still, these challenges are slowing down games about two minutes at a time. That might not sound like much, though when it happens in the flow of an exciting back-and-forth contest, it can be a real killer.

Let’s hope they improve the process, even if it ends up being a work in progress.

NHL teams provided injury news updates on Monday, with the most noteworthy bits revolving around players dealing with concussions. Let’s sort through that mixed bag:

First, we’ll begin with promising news. Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan considers Matt Murray to be “an option” to play on Tuesday against the New York Islanders. That said, it’s a preliminary viewpoint, as Sullivan wants to see how Murray handles practice.

You’d get the impression that the optimism is high despite that caveat, as the Penguins sent Tristan Jarry back to the AHL today. That could still change, but the team must feel a lot more confident about Murray being ready for the postseason.

Actually, it’s worth questioning whether it’s really worth risking Price’s health in meaningless games for Montreal, especially when you note that he’s frequently suffered from bad injury luck lately. Sure, he wants to play; that ambition is part of what makes him great. Concussions can be tricky, though, and you wonder if the reward would justify the risks involved.

Winnipeg Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba is in “concussion protocol,” according to TSN’s Sara Orlesky. Trouba will reportedly see specialists, which isn’t that shocking considering how shaken up he looked after getting the worst of a hard collision with Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars:

The 21-year-old set a new career-high with eight goals this season, and despite being limited to 71 games, he matched last season’s peak of 29 points. Hanifin is starting to show why he was the fifth pick of the 2015 NHL Draft as part of a stacked Hurricanes defense, yet much like his team, it looks like his season’s going to end on a low note.